Lighters used for igniting tobacco products, such as cigars, cigarettes, and pipes, have developed over a number of years. Typically, these lighters use either a rotary friction element or a piezoelectric element to generate a spark near a nozzle which emits fuel from a fuel container. Piezoelectric mechanisms have gained acceptance because they are simple to use. U.S. Pat. No. 5,262,697 (“the '697 patent”) to Meury discloses one such piezoelectric mechanism, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Lighters have also evolved from small cigarette or pocket lighters to several forms of extended or utility lighters. These utility lighters are more useful for purposes such as lighting candles, barbecue grills, fireplaces and campfires. Earlier attempts at such designs relied simply on extended actuating handles to house a typical pocket lighter at the end. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,259,059 and 4,462,791 contain examples of this concept.
Many pocket and utility lighters have had some mechanism for resisting undesired operation of the lighter by young children. Often, these mechanisms are on/off switches which may shut off the fuel source or may prevent movement of an actuator, such as a push-button, on the lighter. On/off switches which a user positively moves between “on” and “off” positions can be problematic. For example, an adult user may forget to move the switch back to the “off” position after use and thereby render the feature ineffective. Other pocket and utility lighters include a spring-biased blocking latch which arrests or prevents movement of the actuator or push-button. U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,775 to Saito and U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,358 to Shike et al., disclose examples of such lighters.
There remains a need for lighters which resist inadvertent operation or undesirable operation by unintended users, but which provide each intended user with a consumer-friendly method of operating the lighters so that the lighters appeal to a variety of intended users.